Folk Deities in Taiwan
Folk deities are closely tied to daily life, guarding homes and communities. Learn about Tudi Gong, the Tiger Lord, and other beloved figures.
Wangye (Plague Lord)
A wooden boat that cost tens of millions to build, carved in exquisite detail, goes up in flames while tens of thousands of people look on. It isn't an accident: this is "burning the royal boat," the grandest religious ritual in southern Taiwan, and its central figures are the Wangye, the Royal Lords, also called Qiansui Ye (Lords of a Thousand Years) or Daitian Xunshou, "inspectors on Heaven's behalf." Wangye is not a single god but the name for a whole family of them: the Five Lords, the Seven Lords, the Twelve Plague Kings, and more. Taiwan has over a hundred Wangye of different surnames, clustered along the coasts of Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Pingtung, and their job is to tour the human world for the Jade Emperor and drive out plague. Donggang's Welcoming the Royal Lords ceremony in Pingtung, held once every three years, runs eight days of inviting the lords, processions, banquets, and finally the boat burning, and has been designated a national important folk custom. Nankunshen Daitian Temple is known as the head temple of Wangye in Taiwan, with branch temples all over the island. If you want to see Taiwanese folk religion at its most alive, visit a Wangye temple.
Nezha (Third Prince)
Wind-fire wheels under his feet, a fire-tipped spear in his hand, and the ability to dance to electronic music in neon costume: the Third Prince may be the coolest god in the world. He is Nezha from the classic novel Investiture of the Gods, third son of Li Jing, honored in the divine world as the Marshal of the Central Altar. Unlike other gods, he is always a child: a little bib, the Universe Ring, the wind-fire wheels, and energy to spare. But don't be fooled by appearances. The Third Prince is heaven's vanguard, a fearsome fighter who always walks at the very front of temple processions, leading the way to drive off evil. At the opening ceremony of the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung, the "Electronic Third Princes" danced to electronic music in neon god costumes and brought the house down; they went on to the Shanghai World Expo, Japan, and the United States, becoming a signature symbol of Taiwanese culture. He is also one of the few gods worshipped in the form of a child. At temple festivals, the Third Prince performers play with children and hand out candy. No god feels closer.
Tiger Lord
When you enter the temple, don't look up just yet. Bend down and peer beneath the main altar table: crouched there, eyes wide and a coin in its jaws, is a tiger. This is Hu Ye, the Tiger Lord, also called Hu Ye Gong or the General of the Lower Altar. He began as the mount of major gods such as the Earth God, Baosheng Dadi, and the City God, which is why he lives under the altar, yet his incense burns nothing like a mere subordinate's. Taiwanese come to the Tiger Lord for two things above all. The first is wealth: as the saying goes, "the Tiger Lord bites the money home," so worshippers hold coins before his mouth and pass them through the incense smoke to carry fortune home, and the crowds praying for wealth are biggest at Lunar New Year. The second is children: folk belief holds that the Tiger Lord cures "pig-head skin" (mumps) in children and keeps them bright, healthy, and free from harm. The Tiger Lords of Beigang Chaotian Temple, Xingang Fengtian Temple, and Dalongdong Baoan Temple are especially famous. An animal god worshipped in his own right is a sight only Taiwanese folk religion offers.
Zhusheng Niangniang
You pray to her when you want a child, you pray to her when you're pregnant, and once the baby arrives you pray to her still. Zhusheng Niangniang, the Birth Registrar Goddess, called Zhusheng Ma by Taiwanese, looks after everything from trying to conceive to raising a child. Her domain is wider than you might think: praying for a child, a smooth pregnancy, a safe delivery, and a healthy baby, all under one roof. In temples she is rarely the main deity. She usually sits in a side hall of a Mazu or Guanyin temple, but walk over and you'll see that the incense ash before the side hall is sometimes thicker than in the main hall. Taiwan's birth rate is now the lowest in the world, yet her incense has not dwindled. If anything, because every pregnancy is more precious, every stick of incense is more heartfelt. Many young parents now bring their children too, praying that they'll be easy to raise, rarely sick, and growing strong. The Zhusheng Niangniang halls of Manka Longshan Temple and Lukang Tianhou Temple are always packed with people making wishes around her birthday.
Qingshui Zushi (Patriarch of Clear Water)
A black-faced statue whose nose "falls off by itself" as a warning: Qingshui Zushi, the Patriarch of Clear Water, popularly called Zushi Gong, the Black-Faced Patriarch, or the Nose-Dropping Patriarch, is one of the most story-filled gods in Taiwan. Born Chen Zhaoying, with the Buddhist name Puzu, he was an eminent Northern Song monk from Anxi in Quanzhou, Fujian, who cultivated, healed the sick, and prayed for rain against drought at Qingshui Cliff, and after his death became the guardian of the Anxi people. In the Ming and Qing dynasties he crossed the strait to Taiwan with migrants from Anxi, Quanzhou. His black face comes from a legend: as he meditated, mountain goblins smoked his face with fire, and though his whole face turned black he did not move. Manka Qingshui Temple, Sanxia Changfu Temple, and Tamsui Qingshui Temple are his three representative temples. The Sanxia temple is famous for its exquisite carving, and its sacred pig ceremony every 6th day of the 1st lunar month is known far and wide.
Di Ji Zhu (Foundation Lord)
When Taiwanese move into a new home, the first thing they do often isn't cooking a meal. It's setting up a low table by the back door and greeting an unseen "original owner." That owner is Di Ji Zhu, the Foundation Lord, also called Diling Gong or Cuzhai Gong. Traditional belief holds that every piece of land and every house has the spirit of someone who lived there first, and those who come after should worship it regularly, asking permission to live there and for protection of the household. Di Ji Zhu is the most widespread and the most low-key god in Taiwan: there are no great temples, but nearly every household worships him. The rites are distinctly homely too: the offering table faces into the house, it's a low table, and the offerings are home-cooked dishes, made on the 2nd and 16th of each lunar month (zuo ya) and at festivals. City apartment life has worn away many traditions, but most Taiwanese families still insist on worshipping Di Ji Zhu when they move in. It is a new household's most basic greeting to the land's original owner.
Kaizhang Shengwang (Sacred King of Zhangzhou)
A Tang dynasty general from 1,300 years ago is still worshipped in Taiwan's temples today. He is Kaizhang Shengwang, the Sacred King Who Opened Zhangzhou, born Chen Yuanguang (657–711) and also called Chen Shengwang or Shengwang Gong. Under Emperor Gaozong of Tang he was sent south to put down unrest, and in Zhangzhou, Fujian, he set up a prefecture and counties, spread farming, and founded schools, so that later generations honored him as the "father of Zhangzhou." When people from Zhangzhou crossed the strait to Taiwan in the Ming and Qing dynasties, they brought their guardian god on board with them. Wherever Zhangzhou settlers cleared land, you often find his temples. Keelung Dianji Temple is the classic example: Keelung's famous Miaokou Night Market grew up right outside the doors of this Kaizhang Shengwang temple. Taoyuan Jingfu Temple also bears witness to Zhangzhou migrants opening up northern Taiwan, and it still holds a grand celebration every year for his birthday on the 15th day of the 2nd lunar month.
Qi Niang Ma (Seven Mothers)
In Tainan, children who have turned 16 crawl under a paper pavilion on Qixi, the seventh night of the seventh month. This is the "Coming of Age at Sixteen" rite, and at its center is Qi Niang Ma, the Seven Mothers, also called the Seven Star Goddess or the Weaving Maiden: seven fairy maidens worshipped together as guardians of children. Taiwanese tradition holds that a child who grows safely to 16 owes it to Qi Niang Ma's protection all along the way. Many families pledge their babies to Qi Niang Ma as godchildren before their first birthday, hanging a charm of coins on red thread around their necks; then on Qixi of the year they turn 16, they return to the temple to remove the charm in thanks, formally marking adulthood. So in Taiwan, Qixi is not just a lovers' day but a day of child protection and coming of age. The custom began on the docks of the Five Canals (Wutiaogang) in old Tainan, where child laborers could only earn full wages once they turned 16. Tainan Kailong Temple is the best-known place for the rite, and every Qixi its ceremonies of crawling under the Qi Niang Ma pavilion and crossing the Qi Niang Ma bridge draw crowds of families.
Kuixing Ye (Star Lord of Literature)
When exam season comes, one god's altar gets piled high with scallions, garlic, radishes, and zongzi. He is Kuixing Ye, also called Kuidou Xingjun or Dakui Fuzi, the god of scholarly fortune, exam luck, and academic success. "Kui" means "first," and from the imperial exams of old to today's high school entrance exams, college entrance exams, and national civil service exams, students who want to come out on top all pray to him. Kuixing has the strangest look of any god in Taiwan: a ghostly figure with red hair, a blue face, and a golden body, a brush in one hand and a dipper in the other, balanced on one leg. This is the character 魁 taken apart (鬼, "ghost," plus 斗, "dipper"), and it carries the auspicious image of "Kuixing marks the dipper, alone atop the great turtle," meaning first place. In Taiwan, Kuixing is mostly worshipped alongside Wenchang Dijun and Confucius. You can find him in the rear hall of Manka Longshan Temple, in the Wenchang Pavilion of the Tainan Confucius Temple (Kuixing is on the third floor), and in the Wenchang Pavilion at Chihkan Tower (Fort Provintia) in Tainan. The imperial exams were abolished over a century ago, but Kuixing hasn't lost his job: before every exam season, students still line up at his censer, admission tickets in hand.
Tudipo (Earth God's Wife)
Many people worshipping the Earth God deliberately skip the old woman beside him. She is Tudipo, the Earth Grandmother, also called Tudi Gongpo, the Earth God's consort. Folk opinion holds that she "won't hand out favors": legend says she is shrewd and practical and often advises the Earth God not to scatter wealth carelessly among people. But that bad reputation is unfair. Tudipo guards something else: family harmony, love between husband and wife, and the least popular but most solid lesson of all, keeping your feet on the ground. Some see her as the embodiment of a homemaker's wisdom. You can find Tudipo at Sijie Fude Temple in Wujie, Yilan, and at Hongludi Nanshan Fude Temple in Zhonghe, where the Earth God and Tudipo were carved together from a single stone. Her statues usually show a kindly old woman, hair in a bun, holding a staff or a gold ingot, sitting quietly beside the Earth God. Next time you worship the Earth God, don't forget to greet her too.
Wen Wu Dazhong Ye
In the seventh lunar month, offering tables across Taiwan stretch from front doors all the way to temple squares, and the guests of honor aren't gods but the "good brothers," the wandering spirits. Presiding over this pact between the living and the dead is Wen Wu Dazhong Ye, the Civil and Martial Lords of the Multitude, also called Dazhong Ye or Lao Da Gong. "Dazhong" means "the many, without distinction": the spirits of those who died far from home in war, plague, or disaster, with no descendants to make offerings, are gathered and enshrined together, given a resting place and a share of incense, turning from homeless ghosts into the recognized Dazhong Ye. It is one of the gentlest inventions of Taiwanese folk religion: even the forsaken dead deserve dignity. Dazhong Ye temples are found mostly on old battlefields, in places once hit hard by plague, and in remote frontier settlements, and Xinzhuang Dizang An is one of the representative temples. Every year at the Ghost Festival's Pudu, from a single table at a family's front door to grand rites at the temples, all of Taiwan practices this same compassion, feeling others' hunger and suffering as its own.
Door Gods
Walk into any temple in Taiwan, and the first gods you "meet" aren't inside the hall at all. They're painted on the doors: the Door Gods. Taiwan's most common pair are the Tang dynasty generals Qin Shubao (white-faced, with phoenix eyes, holding a mace) and Yuchi Gong (black-faced and glaring, holding a steel whip). Legend says they once guarded Emperor Taizong of Tang's palace gate through the night to drive off ghosts, and they have been painted on countless front doors ever since. Besides this pair of "martial door gods," there are civil-official door gods holding court tablets; Shentu and Yulei, found in the Lunheng's quotation of the Classic of Mountains and Seas; the "promotion and rank" door gods symbolizing rising office and wealth; and eunuch, palace-maid, and child door gods guarding the rear halls. In Taiwan, temple door gods are a hand-painted traditional craft, and works by master painters such as Pan Li-shui and Chen Yu-feng are seen as a measure of a temple's artistic worth. Door gods for homes are mostly printed and replaced before Lunar New Year, part of clearing out the old and bringing in the new. To judge a temple, look at its doors first: the quality of the door gods is often the temple's calling card.